Singles’ Day started to be celebrated by single people in China in the 1990s as a response to Valentine’s Day celebration. In 2009, the retail giant Alibaba embraced Singles’ Day and made it a big shopping moment to promote discounts at retailers on its e-commerce platforms. After that, the influence of this day has been grown day by day and it became a global event. To prove this fact, please note that more than 400 million people have watched the countdown for the Singles’ Day which is over three times the number of people who watched this year’s Super Bowl.

When compared to other major online shopping dates, Singles’ Day is standing way ahead of them. On November 11th (which is also the official date 11.11) last year, this biggest global shopping day reached $17.8 billion worth of gross sales in a period of under 24 hours while Black Friday and Cyber Monday saw the total of $6.8 billion. For this year, 140,000 brands and more than 60,000 international brands, will be expected to take place in Singles’ Day 2017.

With seasonal traffic set to reach its highest levels and a spike in e-commerce sales opportunities, you should be ready for this time of the year in order to get maximum advantage in terms of sales and profit. There are also some reasons why that you should participate in that crazy shopping day:

As mentioned above for this year, there will be 140,000 brands and more than 60,000 international brands. Be apparent and claim your seat on that global shopping event.

Singles’ Day is going to be a great opportunity to promote your brand and acquire new customers. %60 of online shoppers stated that they will try new brands. Don’t miss the chance of getting new customers and make them loyal for further purchases!

This year, it is expected to reach $23 billion volume. If you play your cards wisely, there is no reason to take a pie from that huge portion of cake.

Singles’ Day is full of surprises. Online shoppers can reach and buy from a variety of products. For example, Metro, the German supermarket, last year sold 2 million litres of milk. Besides of that thermos insulated mugs from the US, Braun thermometers from Germany, Dior lipsticks from France, Laurier sanitary napkins from Japan were some of the popular products on Singles’ Day 2016.

Even Singles’ Day has become a global event, the influence of Chinese shoppers cannot be denied and they are enthusiastic to purchase foreign products. Look at last year’s top sellers.

Obviously, there is no reason why your online store cannot try to take advantage of the craze and run your own Singles’ Day special. As also Singles’ Day has an apparent correlation with discounts and also as we are pricing heroes here at Prisync, we would like to give quick and actionable Singles’ Day pricing tips to be used in your e-commerce store.

Don’t ignore your costs!

Yes! The goal of every single e-commerce retailer participating in Singles’ Day is taking advantage from shopping craze and increasing sales. Assumed as the easiest way to attract online shoppers, many of retailers offer shocking discounts just to boost their sales. But it is a huge mistake! Your e-commerce store is doomed to die if you ignore product costs and set the prices under the costs. The formulation is so simple; if you earn less than you spend (costs), you lose money from every single of sales. Therefore, generating a great number of sales in that scenario won’t be more than fooling yourself.

So, as your ultimate goal should be improving your net profit during Singles’ Day, always keep an eye on your costs which leads you to keep your profitability in a good shape.

In some cases, you may not reach the desired competitive pricing advantage because of your costs. You can try to figure out a way to lower your own costs. Seek for opportunities to get a discount from your supplier, cut down your packaging costs, optimize your shipping strategy, coordinate warehouse operations, have a very strict inventory management… Only once you figure out a way to lower your own costs, you will be able to offer great discounts or lower prices for customers.

Also, I would like to advise setting smart prices to e-commerce retailers who will be active during Singles’ Day by looking out the price competition in the market and focusing on your costs at the same time. With Prisync’s Dynamic Pricing Module, you’re able to set smart prices by adding your product costs and other variants such your competitors’ prices and target profit margins to your products that you track by Prisync. After setting these rules, you’ll figure out your smart prices based on your costs, your competitors’ prices and your target profit margins.

Increase the profitability and be the most competitive in the market.

I know it sounds like magic but you have heard it right!

You can be both profitable and the most competitive at the same time in Singles’ Day. Let’s see how to do that!

Compared to your competitors, your prices may be too competitive. So, even increasing the price by %5 or %10 isn’t likely to impact the performance of your competitive position. This is an opportunity to test a price increase, improving your profit margin and still being the best offer in the market.

Let’s go through a real example.

Consumer electronics is going to be one of the most popular categories during Single’s Day and TOMTOM Runner 3 Cardio Watch seems a good gift for singles to purchase a present for themselves. 🙂 At below you can see two different e-commerce retailers selling the same TOMTOM watch. The first one is the most competitive one in terms of price, selling it at £105. The second retailer sells the TOMTOM at £169.99. So, in that scenario, the first e-commerce retailer can raise the price just below its competitor by setting it £160. This move will bring increased profit margins that lift up the balance sheet and still let the product be the most competitive one in the market.

The most efficient way to detect these price increase opportunities is using a specialized competitor price tracking software, by which companies access an overview of what their competitors are charging for key product categories. Armed with this intelligence, companies can make precise decisions regarding small price increases that allow them to remain competitive.

Analyze your competitors past Singles’ Day prices

Most of the e-commerce retailers have tailored pricing decisions based on a specific time. Especially for online shopping events such as Singles’ Day, e-commerce retailers set special deals and prices. So, being able to identify the prices of your competitors on 11.11.2016 would be a definitely precious market intelligence. With that information, you can analyze your competitors’ prices on a specific date and respond their pricing moves effectively. Also with that market information, you’ll have an idea of consumer willingness to purchase on certain products.

With a competitor price tracking software you can generate historical data for Singles’ Day price trends and display it in graphics that will give you a general idea about the market trends and fluctuations.

The first hours of Singles’ Day are critical

Here, a spoiler for you! Last year, the majority of Singles’ Day purchases occurred in the first hour (midnight in China is noon EST on November 10th). Armed with that insight, you may consider focusing on first few hours, so be sure to make your special offers, discounts, incentives start prior to this day and time.

Online shoppers are really attentive while they are spending their money in the online market as they can do product search and comparison easily. That’s why you need to be ready for the big day and load your arsenal with these Singles’ Day pricing tips. You’ll see how you can achieve to convert your potential leads to real customers.